Across China on Foot eBook

In twenty-five minutes we had a three-course meal
(all out of the same pot, but no matter), and onwards
to our destination we fed royally. In parting
with the men after our safe arrival at Chung-king,
we left with them about seven-eighths of the picul—­and
were not at all regretful.

I should not like to assert—­because I am
telling the truth here—­that our boat was
bewilderingly roomy. As a matter of fact, its
length was some forty feet, its width seven feet,
its depth much less, and it drew eight inches of water.
Yet in it we had our bed-rooms, our dressing-rooms,
our dining-rooms, our library, our occasional medicine-room,
our cooking-room—­and all else. If we
stood bolt upright in the saloon amidships we bumped
our heads on the bamboo matting which formed an arched
roof. On the nose of the boat slept seven men—­you
may question it, reader, but they did; in the stern,
on either side of a great rudder, slept our boy and
a friend of his; and between them and us, laid out
flat on the top of a cellar (used by the ship’s
cook for the storing of rice, cabbage, and other uneatables,
and the breeding-cage of hundreds of rats, which swarm
all around one) were the captain and commodore—­a
fat, fresh-complexioned, jocose creature, strenuous
at opium smoking. Through the holes in the curtain—­a
piece of sacking, but one would not wish this to be
known—­dividing them from us, we could see
him preparing his globules to smoke before turning
in for the night, and despite our frequent raving
objections, our words ringing with vibrating abuse,
it continued all the way to Chung-king: he certainly
gazed in disguised wonderment, but we could not get
him to say anything bearing upon the matter.
Temperature during the day stood at about 50 degrees,
and at night went down to about 30 degrees above freezing
point. Rains were frequent. Journalistic
labors, seated upon the upturned saucepan aforesaid,
without a cushion, went hard. At night the Chinese
candle, much wick and little wax, stuck in the center
of an empty “Three Castles” tin, which
the boy had used for some days as a pudding dish,
gave us light. We generally slept in our overcoats,
and as many others as we happened to have. Rats
crawled over our uncurtained bodies, and woke us a
dozen times each night by either nibbling our ears
or falling bodily from the roof on to our faces.
Our joys came not to us—­they were made
on board.

The following are the Gorges, with a remark or two
about each, to be passed through before one reaches
Kweifu:—­

NAME OF GORGE LENGTH
REMARKS

Ichang Gorge 16 miles
First and probably one
of the finest
of the
Gorges.

Niu Kan Ma Fee 4 miles
An hour’s journey after
(or Ox Liver coming out
of the
Gorge) Ichang Gorge,
if the
breeze be
favorable;
an arduous
day’s
journey during
high
river, with
no wind.